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A fraudster aged 65 made millions of pounds running a highly organised and ‘exceptionally profitable’ benefits scam for 13 years, a court has heard.

Jean Hutchinson, who had a secret office hidden behind a bedroom wardrobe, would scour newspapers for stories of people who had left Britain for a new life abroad.

She then hijacked the identities of 200 emigrants she felt were unlikely to return, jurors were told.

When police raided her apartment and uncovered her ‘headquarters’ behind a rack of clothes, they discovered thousands of documents.

Each was carefully filed under various identities used to cheat the taxpayer.

Anuja Dhir, prosecuting, claimed Hutchinson and her cousin, who admits his part in the deception, targeted nearly every handout going, including housing, incapacity, council tax benefits and income support.

Payments were sent to eight ‘core’ addresses in London, Watford and on the Isle of Wight, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.

Investigators also discovered a string of bogus landlords and property companies, designed as a ‘failsafe’ to avoid suspicion.

‘This conspiracy was exceptional in its scope, organisation, duration and profitability. [Hutchinson] was at the heart of it,’ Ms Dhir said.

By the time Hutchinson and alleged partner-in-crime Ralph Dale were arrested last July, they had siphoned off £2.4million, the Crown says.

Hutchinson, of Maida Vale, West London, denies conspiring to defraud the Department of Work and Pensions and various local authorities between May 1993 and June 1996.

Dale, 63, of Halifax, West Yorkshire, admitted being involved for ten years. Ms Dhir alleged the pair would apply for birth certificates claiming they were trying to trace a family tree.

They then obtained a national insurance number saying the original was lost, she told the court.

Ministry officials found files relating to 190 identities, the barrister said. Of these, 76 had allegedly been used to claim benefits.

When the ‘very many’ documents recovered were examined, a significant number allegedly featured Hutchinson’s handwriting.